


Aldmoor

by OlivesAndVermouth (BlueEyedLookalike)



Category: Dungeons & Randomness (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Nathaniel has Issues, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 04:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14072637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueEyedLookalike/pseuds/OlivesAndVermouth
Summary: After Nathaniel survives his injuries from the Battle of White Wolf Valley, he quietly decides that he is not fit to lead and ends up halfway across the mainland in Aldmoor. He tries to pick up the pieces.





	Aldmoor

Late one winter night, a small carriage rolled into Aldmoor. A stone-faced cleric exited, hands clasped and looking down her nose in disapproval as she entered the Lantern and asked Drak about an empty house for sale.

Drak hated her already. The cleric wore humble robes but she had the air of an Uman’Yiro mage, arrogant, her posture stiff-backed to accentuate the authority she thought she had. Ugh. “I’m running the counter, not keeping track of which idiots move in and out,” Drak said, attempting to remain cordial and giving up almost immediately. “Buy a room or get out.”

She bought two rooms, dropping the gold out of a large bag without hesitation. “Is there an herbalist or alchemist in the area?” she asked.

“What do you want?”

“That’s confidential, unless you happen to be either of those.” She smiled, a gentle, sarcastic thing that had Drak doubling his prices. The fleshbag didn’t want to hear it that the rusty warforged could brew remedies, but she acquiesced and admitted her charge would need a steady supply of a painkiller for several months. Easy. The kid that walked in looked like hell, missing his right hand, half his face and down a shiny, ugly burn that he tried to hide with a hooded cloak and a ducked head. The kid wasn’t good at hiding.

A cold feeling in Drak’s chest grasped at the image of those scars, focusing on the knowledge the kid needed medication to combat lingering pain – the concealed damage must have been extensive and severe to need that kind of treatment, the initial wound a mind-breaking hurt – and Drak tried to think, _Now you know how it feels_ , with a sneering twist of satisfaction. It fell flat, and he passed over the keys without a word. The more time passed, the more hollowed out it seemed, the harder it was to give a fuck about anything, let alone finding joy in some human’s suffering. It would be easier if this damn disease killed him already.

The next day, a house was bought, the kid moved in, and the cleric and carriage left town. “I’m Nathaniel,” he introduced the next day when Drak left him with a few days’ dosage while he put in orders for supplies.

“It look like I care?” Drak asked.

Nathaniel blinked slow, half-confused and half-offended. Definitely a rich kid, not used to being dismissed. “What’s your name?” the kid asked anyway.

“Drak.” He walked out before the human could waste any more of his time with painful, boring small talk.

\--~+~--

Winter through spring, Nathaniel laid on his bed.

No one checked on him. No one asked him how he was doing. No one bothered him about sleeping or eating or taking his medicine. He laid on his good side, staring at the bedroom door, and nothing happened, except for Drak dropping off new dosages that he didn’t know Nathaniel wasn’t taking. When the pain was good, his breath was a little short and he trembled; when it was bad, he blacked out for hours. Once, he stumbled and fell on his bad arm and screamed for five solid seconds, the type of helpless wailing that forced all thought from his mind, and no one came. No one was left to care about the would-be Lord of Winterhaven.

When the ashblossom revived him to consciousness beyond that terrible trapped moment of Straad’s flames descending, curling, _melting_ , he cried until he fell asleep and repeated the cycle when he woke again. Without the war, without the pain, without any distraction, it crashed upon him and crushed him into pure grief and terror. His mother, his father, Thoril, his responsibilities as Winterhaven’s Lord, the memory of that horrific beast Straad’s attack – he couldn’t think under the weight. They called him “Lord Serverus,” and he screamed, “No!” How could he do this? He couldn’t do this, no, this was too much, no, he, he couldn’t, don’t, he couldn’t—

No more Lord Nathaniel Serverus of Winterhaven. Just Nathaniel, far, far away from who he used to be. He remembered his parents like he remembered someone else’s. He killed her, stabbed her through the back? How horrible. Thoril’s death was sharper, maybe because Nathaniel could hold his hero’s handaxes, maybe because they told him Thoril approved Straad’s arrival, and _Straad_ , Straad was the warped nightmare that burnt his consciousness to a crisp, clear as if the flames still bore down upon him, replaying the scene again and again and again. No more Lord Nathaniel Serverus of Winterhaven. Just the crippled, haunted orphan staring at the ceiling of a house in Aldmoor.

After futile, half-hearted attempts at buying and cooking his own food, he paid a local vendor, a wiry drow a head taller than him, to make meals for him. He felt pathetic for failing at what so many considered an essential skill. No one had taught him, no one had thought it had been important to teach him, no recipes from his mother or basic knowledge on ingredients or spices, not to mention his new struggles with simple tasks like peeling an apple one-handed. He bore several small scars after that frustrating incident. Had his father struggled with the same and Nathaniel had never noticed, or had servants handled it for him? Worse, while Nathaniel could light the fireplace and turn away with minimal reaction, lingering over an open flame to roast meat, boil water, or cook vegetables riled every panicked instinct in his body until he shook uncontrollably. Once, when he knocked over a boiling pot and burned his forearm, Straad roared in his ears and echoed there and he was in that room, that tiny crowded room full darkness and searing pain, never awake, stuck in that moment, that goddamned _moment_. He stopped trying after that.

“Don’t tell me you did that to yourself, too,” Drak said, gesturing to Nathaniel’s ruined half as the warforged begrudgingly applied the burn salve to the fresh wound.

“No.” Nathaniel had meant to sound indignant, defensive, but it slipped out like an uncertain ghost of denial.

“Sure, whatever. I couldn’t care less.”

Nathaniel handed over a coin pouch, not bothering to count out the exact amount. The council had loaded him down with more money than he could imagine spending and over-paying tended to make people doubletake, focus on his face rather than his scars. He wasn’t worried about being found out. The news had come into town months ago that the young Lord of Winterhaven had died from battle wounds taken at the Battle of White Wolf Valley. Rumors blurred the deaths of Winterhaven’s nobility into a dramatic story of jealousy and grief: Lord Serverus stabbed his wife, believing she had bedded another man, and threw himself upon the swords of several Winterhaven knights when he realized his grievous mistake, leaving their son to charge into battle with suicidal fervor, downed within minutes of the fighting. Why would the heir leave his lordship if he had survived?

\--~+~--

“Do you know him well?” Zenora asked.

“Hmm?” the drow woman replied, hunched over the counter of her stall, leaning her chin on her hand, her gaze wandering across the street until it drifted to the monster hunter. Her name was Wen, a Brightport cast-off a couple years green to Aldmoor. Most Brightport natives got sick of Aldmoor’s quiet life and left, but Wen had planted her stall in the middle of town and fallen into the slow rhythm without a misstep.

Zenora nodded in the direction of the man named Nathaniel as he strode quickly towards his home with a basket hooked over his arm. “Do you know him well?” she repeated.

A lazy, sharp smile pulled at Wen’s wide mouth. “Oh, Nate’s screwy,” she said, sweeping her free arm towards his retreating back. “Lots of baggage that’s bent him out of shape. He does that nervous little thing where his eyes move like he’s got something to say but his mouth doesn’t say anything.”

“I haven’t seen him around town after he bought the house. Does he talk to anyone?”

Wen shrugged one shoulder. “Nah. He’s damaged goods. Damaged goods don’t talk to people, people don’t talk to damaged goods. Asks me for food and Drak stops by to give him whatever, that’s it.” Wen’s smile curled to one side knowingly and she began grappling through her display shelves. She placed three bread rolls in Zenora’s hands, nodding to herself in approval. “If you’re making friends, lead with a roll, especially with hermit sorts.”

Nathaniel’s sad, downcast face brightened in happy surprise when Zenora offered the bread out. They chatted in the doorway, comfortingly bland pleasantries passed back and forth. From over his shoulder, she saw the interior of the house was arranged in large, dusty empty spaces interspered with an uncaring clutter of items. “Thanks, Zenora,” he said. “Since I moved in, it’s been . . .” A cold, dreadful weight dropped in her stomach when his smile faltered – not from awkwardness, uncertainty, or a tinge of sadness but a flash of apathy that turned the air stale around him, his body collapsed and still. A moment, so swiftly gone Zenora couldn’t remember his exact expression, only the visceral impression it left in her gut. The smile returned, a bit more shy than before. “Rough,” Nathaniel finished.

Zenora grasped his forearm, the healthy one. Despite Nathaniel’s naturally strong and broad figure, his arm was gaunt, too skinny underneath her hand. His face, too, she realized, was sunken in the cheeks. “Do you know the spot on the north side of town?” she asked.

“Um, I don’t think so.”

“On the edge of town, there’s a swell in the hill. It has the best view of the Hazaan Mountains you’ll ever get. It’s my favorite spot in town, great to get away from it all and think in peace.”

“Sounds nice.”

\--~+~--

Summer found Nathaniel sitting on that hill, sweating under the harsh sun and watching the red dragons swoop through the mountains. The sight of the distant giants finally spurned him to begin taking Drak’s painkillers regularly. Something about their red scales brought the pain to the forefront, ever-present and burning, until the medicine eased it back. Sometimes a large silhouette would catch the corner of his eye and Nathaniel would be in that hellfire room again, fighting to wake up, to breathe through flames, but most days the dragons calmed him. They were manageable from this many miles, just mortal beasts prowling through their hunting grounds, caring of little else. On a particularly peaceful night when all the wounds of the past seemed to be healing more than festering, he asked Zenora about Straad’s death and found enough levity in him to smile at the thought of tiny Briahna Ebelmare dealing the killing blow.

Zenora didn’t ask questions. She joined Nathaniel on the hill or invited him to her house for dinner, talked about her exploits and her plans, but never pried for Nathaniel’s. She was a busybody, eager to hear world news or visit someone’s home to check up, and her silences spoke volumes over her words, a realization that made Nathaniel feel like a naïve child. Stupid blunt Nathaniel running into battles and having his right side cooked off, didn’t know people could say things without speaking them aloud. Zenora effused concern and grasped his forearm like she was his tether, but she never asked.

Wen, on the other hand, took to questioning him whenever he bought his food, the drow leaning over her counter and wondering if he planned to stay in that house for the rest of his life or how a wealthy young man ended up in a backwater town in the first place. Where Zenora was kind distance, Wen was calm intrusion. The vendor always wore the same confident smile of a woman who knew she’d get her answers eventually. She called him broken, damaged, crazy, a mess, all with fondness. When he asked if she’d like to sit with him and Zenora on the north hill, she declined by telling him dragons were boring.

Nathaniel kept the handaxes underneath his bed tucked away in a travel pack. Taking them out, twirling one in his good hand, broke him open each time, and everything was fresh, new, painful, blurry with tears. “Thoril,” he choked out, feeling insane and ridiculous and _relieved_ to speak to a dead man through his weapons. “I had to leave, right? I couldn’t stay. People would’ve looked at me and expected me to do something, and I – I don’t have any idea what I was doing! Everyone told me to do this or that, decide everything. I dunno if I thought of anything or if they all just made me say things. I couldn’t . . .” He slashed the air with the handaxe. “If you could call Straad, if my dad could kill my mom, then what would I have done? Blown up the whole city? I’m just a stupid fuck-up. Can’t even die to a legendary dragon right. Can’t do what I was born to do. Can’t cook my own fucking food!” He clutched the handaxe to his chest, grief brimming over fast and messy, voice constricted to a whisper. “I miss you all so much.” He repeated it, because it didn’t feel real. “I miss you all _so much_.” The heroes died, and the coward ran.

\--~+~--

“Zenora?”

“Yes?”

There was a group of tiny wyrmlings dancing around each other near the peaks, dots flying in tight circles and diving for one another. Nathaniel tried counting them, but the vision in his right eye wasn’t perfect anymore, and they blurred together. “Should you run away from something if you have reasons? Good reasons, maybe?”

Zenora sighed. “We do what it takes to survive.”

For his own peace of mind, Nathaniel closed his eyes and nodded in agreement. He’d survived. He was breathing. He could hold onto that and appreciate it, if not for himself then for all those behind him who had picked him up and cheered him on and now laid in graves. “You’re right,” he said. The sunshine felt nice on his face.


End file.
